Along with these high-risk groups, each country in the Asia Pacific now classifies migrant populations, both international and internal, as groups vulnerable to HIV infection. Being a migrant is not a risk factor itself but causes for poor health and HIV vulnerability among migrants include: discrimination, gender inequality, sexual violence and exploitation, dangerous working environments, poor living conditions and lack of access to education, social services and, maybe most important, lack of access to healthcare. Migrants often lack access to mainstream healthcare, education and social services.Many migrants do not have legalstatus within their destination countries and live in isolation, making it difficult to protect themselves against the people who might exploit them or sexually abuse them. Social isolation and other factorsmay lead migrants to participate in high-risk behavior, including use of drugs and alcohol. Male migrants away from home may alsopartake in the services of female sex workers, while the female migrants might look to sex work when they need money and have no social network to support them. All of these situations and activities increase the vulnerability of migrants to HIV infection.
URL : http://www.swasti.org/images/projects/research/Migrants_And_HIV.pdf